Lost UK pension pots soar to 2.8mn
The number of lost pension pots has soared in the last four years by 75 per cent to 2.8mn with a total value of £26.6bn, according to a report this week highlighting the difficulties savers face keeping track of their holdings.
Ahead of National Pension Tracing Day on October 30, pensions experts are urging savers to redouble efforts to seek unclaimed, dormant and lost pension pots with an average worth of £9,500.
Between mid-2018 and mid-2022, the total value of lost pension pots in the UK has risen by 37.7 per cent, or about £7bn, says the report from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), an industry think-tank.
The pensions industry says it is improving tracing methods and tackling the problem of growing numbers of small pension pots, created when workers change jobs more frequently, as now happens. Gail Izat, workplace managing director at Standard Life, said: “No matter how small, if you’ve contributed to a pension in the past, the money’s yours, and we want to help you find it.”
She argues that a way forward is to ease the consolidation of small pensions so pots under a certain size move automatically when a worker changes jobs: “There’s a good rationale for consolidating small pots as the more people have, the greater their interest in the pension.”
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Stefan Wagstyl
